Friday, May 24, 2013

It Seems I Won't Be Writing For Linux Advocates After All

Last week I had announced in the LXer forums that I would be a contributing author to Linux Advocates. That was followed by a post on the site announcing that I would be joining their team. I was honestly excited about this. I felt that writing for Linux Advocates would add credibility to my stories and bring me back some of the wider audience I had when I wrote for O'Reilly Media. The additional exposure would help me market my consulting business which brings Linux and FOSS solutions to businesses and organizations looking to reduce IT costs and enhance the reliability, stability and security of their IT infrastructure.

Today it became clear that I wouldn't be writing for Linux Advocates after all. I've learned a lot in the past week and I've come to the conclusion that this is for the best.

First, a number of prominent writers and developers in the Linux community tried to get me to reconsider. The big issue for them was what they saw as heavy handed moderation by Dietrich Schmitz, including banning a number of them from the site entirely. I've argued that website owners have the right to moderate and control the content on their sites. I've made clear that such editorial control is most definitely not censorship as some have claimed. The dispute between Mr. Schmitz and those who felt they were unfairly treated, including several former Linux Advocates writers, spilled over into five different threads in the LXer forums and several Google+ pages and included a great deal of rather heated language.

After reading all the comments back and forth I decided to go ahead as planned and I began an article on systemd to be published as my first post for Linux Advocates. Unfortunately little things like earning a living plus one day where I was a bit under the weather got in the way of my finishing the article until today. Following instructions sent to me by Mr. Schmitz I added myself as a contributor to the site. So far, so good.

Only then did I really read and digest everything else Mr. Schmitz wanted me to do, like setup an account in his personal domain so that I could have a Linux Advocates e-mail address. He also wanted me to install a Zemanta plugin for Chrome. I have deliberately chosen not to use Chrome (an article about that soon) and wasn't happy about that at all. I went to install the Zemanta plugin for Firefox instead and was presented with a Microsoft-style End User License Agreement (EULA). As many in the open source community would expect, that set off all sorts of red flags for me.

In the seven years since my identity was stolen and used for criminal purposes I've become increasingly paranoid about data security. I already feel I've left way too much information about myself out on the net. I'm very concerned about what companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft do when they collect data about me. I'm very concerned about who they might sell or give that data to. Suddenly, I found myself reading a license agreement for a proprietary piece of software that explicitly had terms relating to collecting and retaining data.

I felt deeply uncomfortable and didn't go through with the installation. It's one thing to be forced to use proprietary software to service a client or do work required by an employer. It's quite another for someone who is getting my labor at no cost and benefiting from it to demand I install something on my own system. I first asked if Zemanta was mandatory and then wrote a follow-up e-mail making clear that I wasn't about to install it.

Mr. Schmitz' response was direct and to the point. If I can't accommodate how he chooses to run his site then I should go elsewhere. Once again, he was getting writing from me on a voluntary basis on a website were he is currently begging for money to make ends meet. This is a Linux advocacy site. You'd think he'd be the one to accommodate an aversion to proprietary tools that aren't in any way necessary for him to publish my writing. I guess not.

So.. no, sorry, Mr. Schmitz, I won't be accommodating you. I'll find ways to bring traffic to my blog which don't require sacrificing my security, privacy or principles. I still have other outlets who would like me to write for them as well. I wish Dietrich Schmitz all the best with his website. I just won't be a part of it.

Good for you Caitlyn. Wasn't real crazy about his articles anyway. IMHO he's not a linux advocate but a Redhat/Fedora advocate. Just his attitude in some of his post led me to believe he wasn't on the up and up. Your articles are great and I'm sure you'll do better without Mr. Schmitz. Good luck.

In fairness I'm a strong advocate for Red Hat as well and I agree with a lot of Dietrich Schmitz's comments about them. I do appreciate your kind words and I hope to learn from this experience in terms of how I advocate for Linux and how I defend my views. Let's just say I'm reexamining my own attitudes and my own approach to my readers.

Not because I agree with your judgement. There isn't a cats chance hell possibility I have the knowledge and experience to know the outcome of your decision.

You didn't compromise your principles! That's what matters! You have decided to run your affairs a certain way, with a well defined set of principles and so far you have proven enough to know they work you, and can see no reason for coercion to compromise.

I came to know about LinuxAdvocates from LinuxGirl, whom I admired because of Linux posts (and because she is very few womans in Linux world). However, when they started begging money, so early I was little suspecious. When I followed more posts, their article seemed like Zdnet's posts (light fire, just to bring more views) and very few facts. When you write something based on them, people will be suspicious of you too. I hope you will not continue that trend. Good Luck.

Like you I have a lot of respect for Katherine Noyes and her writing. I'll also say there are some very good writers on ZDNet. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols immediately comes to mind. I wouldn't paint all their articles with a broad brush as you have.

This guy is a new age welfare bum. Instead of spending time finding a job he stood up a free blog and has done nothing but demand money and bully people who don't give him his way. He is only an advocate to himself, he does not care at all about foss, just the content of his bank account. Welcome to welfare bum 2.0...

That comment is decidedly unfair. I almost deleted it but since it isn't quite libelous I let it be. I prefer very limited moderation.

Until very recently the job market was very difficult. There is a fair amount of agism in IT and in hiring in general. That's been well documented. Mr. Schmitz is old enough for that to be a factor. For that matter, so am I. I think it is just plain wrong to assume he hasn't tried hard enough to find work and to label him the way you have.

Please, let's not turn the comments section into a series of personal attacks on Mr. Schmitz or anyone else. I wish him and Linux Advocates well.

Dietrich Shmitz ends up being an advocate for himself and his own opinionated ideas whether or not that is his intention. He is as fanatic in his opposition to anything he perceives as disruptive (such as systemd) as he is in his promoting of classic Linux operating system. He often makes some very good points in his commentaries, points that I would agree with without hesitation. But he always manages to end up taking an extreme position when he does so. If he doesn't like something, his attack on it takes a scorched earth approach, and if you don't agree with him on the subject, you will feel his fire as well.

The bottom line for me is that Linux is in so many ways about community and about people working together to achieve common goals. And Dietrich Schmitz, in many ways, turns that on its head by being extremely divisive in just about every way one can imagine. My early days in software were devoted to Unix and we used to have to deal with those around us whom we referred to as "Unix bigots" back then. They had a certain "attitude". For them, "their" software was a religion. They didn't just like and advocate it. They were DEVOTED to it AND it had better not be changed in any significant way without their approval. In some ways for me, Mr Schmitz is something of a flashback to those days.

Linux is something big and it is hardly something that any one person can control and contain. Linux developers put a lot, if not all, of their own time into their projects and they don't dance to somebody else's music. Thus, Linux development is a very democratic enterprise and democracy is necessarily messy. This, obviously, is not acceptable to Mr Schmitz. And he ends up being an advocate for himself and his own narrow concept of what "Linux" should be.

In fairness to Mr. Schmitz I'll point out that I can be very opinionated and I do defend my views strongly and engage in debate with my readers. I'm sure some people who don't like my views would describe them and my writing in much the way you describe Mr. Schmitz's writing. I really don't have a problem with his style of advocacy. However, the comments here and on g+ make it clear to me for the first time that a lot of people do. I may have to take that into account and rethink some of my own approach.

Also, Mr. Schmitz has reversed himself on systemd and he did so based on learning more about how it works. Please see: http://www.linuxadvocates.com/2013/05/cgroups-big-win-for-systemd.html That piece showed that Mr. Schmitz does have integrity and is willing to reconsider his positions.

I really, really don't want my comments section to turn into a series of attacks on Mr. Schmitz. I harbor no ill will towards him and I wish him success in his endeavors. I just was uncomfortable with his terms for participating on his website. Since he announced far and wide that I'd be joining the site I felt compelled to explain why I didn't. Let's leave it at that, OK?

"In fairness to Mr. Schmitz I'll point out that I can be very opinionated and I do defend my views strongly and engage in debate with my readers."

I think the KEY difference is that, rather than engaging in debate with his readers, Mr Schmitz tends to stifle it. We ALL have opinions, but it is how we handle those opinions that matters. I am oh so happy that Mr Schmitz is reconsidering his position on systemd and I hope it means that he is becoming more willing to truly engage in debate with those whom he is in disagreement with. There are a lot of bright young people doing Linux development who are coming up with very promising, but as yet half baked ideas. People like Mr Schmitz need to be challenging the community to fulfill those dreams by refining those inventions rather than just attempting to shout them down from a self appointed bully pulpit. He CAN make his point in an open environment free of intimidation and manipulation. My hope is that he is moving in this direction and will move further in this direction. For reference, I am the author of the original post. I don't know Mr Schmitz personally, nor to I have anything against him at all on a personal level. I am just an observer on the sidelines expressing my honest gut reaction to his apparent MO based on past observations.

this is a very interesting experiment of the human psyche... fear and paranoia drove you to refuse the installation of a browser plugin, and then it seems like you banked on having the support from people who do not like the guy when you decided to publicize the situation by writing this article. from a website ownership viewpoint, i can understand his motivations for asking you to install zemanta. however i fail to see the good behind whatever motive there was for writing this article.

That's a bit unfair. There was an announcement on Linux Advocates which Mr. Schmitz posted far and wide that stated I'd be writing for the site. I also wrote the same thing in the LXer forum. My point in writing this was to basically say that things had changed and to explain why. I didn't expect a lot of comments or much in the way of support at all. I really didn't have a clue how many people Mr. Schmitz had alienated in the Linux community until now. +29 on g+ is a shock to me.

Regarding Zemanta, my concern was privacy and how data about me is collected. The fact that I don't know how it will be used is the whole point. So, no, I don't have any proof that it's a security risk. I do know that it is not at all necessary to post on Blogger as I have four blogs here including this one. Linux Advocates is hosted on blogger.

Honestly, though, if it hadn't been for the EULA I would have installed Zemanta and moved forward. Most FOSS advocates aren't keen on those sort of license agreements. That is a matter of principle for many people including me. I've written about Linux on a number of websites and I also do political writing. Nobody has ever asked me to install software to do it. That just shouldn't be necessary.

Thanks to everyone who posted kind words of support. It is appreciated. I'm also taking some of the comments about Mr. Schmitz's style of advocacy to heart and, as I mentioned above, reexamining my own style of advocacy and my own interaction with my readers and the wider Linux community. Hopefully some good will come of this.

Huh? I have always allowed dissenting views on my websites/blogs and that is not about to change. I have never deleted a comment for mentioning a specific person. Why would I hate the people you mentioned?

What I said was that I'm wondering if my own style is too combative at times, not that I am planning to emulate Mr. Schmitz in any way, shape or form.

Dietrich deletes comments he does not agree with to shape his narrative and has banned people for mention those he hates, like Maureen O'Gara. You can see what happened when Roy Schestowitz said Fabian Scherschel wasn't a troll, here.

Thank you, Steve. I've actually been contacted by quite a few Linux and FOSS site owners who want me to write for them. I'm flattered and truly grateful for the offers and I'll be considering them over the next few days.

Specific software wouldn't have bothered me if it was FOSS and respected my privacy. Zemanta is proprietary and is mining data.

When you first announced your possible involvement, it seemed to me a good idea, to bring more balanced journalism and a more rounded approach to article, which would improve the Linux Advocates site. While the short opinion pieces usually on that site meet their provocative intent in the short term, there's not much there to keep a free software user going back to it, and certainly little depth. Your contribution might have altered that sense of short-termism. However, it seemed to me that there was real risk to you and your reputation too, and your subsequent decision is very respectable. To paraphrase a notorious UK tabloid headline, "Debian Wheezy ate my hamster" wears a bit think after a while... ;-)

At first I didn't know what to think about linux advocates, hey anything to bring more attention to Linux right?. But it seems that all the articles have the intent of drawing outrage amongst users.

I honestly can't figure out what they are trying to do over there. Then after his continuous spamming of /. I realize now that all they are doing is bringing a bad name to Linux.

I'm genuinely embarrassed and I hope the community realizes they do not represent users of Linux. I just wish they would stop, it's really hurting the community and people whom wish to use Linux.

I think you were right to turn down the Job. Seems like every week we see two new articles about how Microsoft's 'Skype' is spying on you and how Windows in general is a platform for Backdoors to a secret Government office.

What they are trying to do? Make some money. The guy figured that tabloid-style writing and purposeful controversy generates lots of clicks. If you don't like it, just don't click. They don't care if you like or hate them as long as you click. So, vote with your clicks :)

Hi, I'm one of the people censored. I too believe in editorial control of comments and don't think they are a place to host personal attacks. I was also excited to be invited to the Linux Advocates community at G+. So, I'm mortified that Mr. Schmitz deleted one of my comments and called me unprofessional and rude. I quit the community after that.

Later, I asked him what his goals for the site are and got no satisfactory answer.

I have deleted exactly one comment on this thread; a really nasty personal attack on Mr. Schmitz that just wasn't called for. The last thread, where I recommended Red Hat Enterprise Linux for business, hasn't needed moderation at all. In my experience it's usually best to let people have their say unless the comment is way, way, way over the top.

There are different people in that group. And such communities sometimes are not communities, since the moderator or founder leads the way. This rarely is all for good...However, I would never mix people like Katherine Noyes (there's nothing wrong with "blogosphere" :-P ) and many other Linux users, fans, writers or not, with what Dietrich has done. He'd become very partial, lately. It's a pity.We do not agree 100%, but I like and enjoy Katherine's, Steven Vaughan-Nichols' and Carla Schoder's texts... and Catlyn's :-)

You made the right decision. It's very unfortunate that this Linux Advocates site even exists, as it certainly doesn't look to live up to its name. It looks to be just a thinly-veiled anti-systemd propaganda site and just from the links to it I've seen posted on LXer, looks to be very full of negativity. I wish Mr. Schmitz would have his ability to post directly to LXer revoked, because he's just using it to direct clicks to his site, while posting all sorts of irrelevant stuff that shouldn't be linked from LXer. If he wants to use "Linux Advocates" as an unfortunate name for his blog about whatever, he can do that, but he shouldn't be spamming LXer with it too.

I agree with your approach entirely. I also admire your determination to not make it personal. But there is tendency on the site owner's part to feel that his ideas are absolute and every body else are "chumps" (in his words). LA is not at all about Linux advocacy, and more about a man's almost single minded obsessions. I was one of the early donors to his appeal...but now find the site irritating and irrelevant, and am only accidentally taken there by posts on LXer.